


do not go gentle into that good night

by bevsmrsh



Category: IT (1990), IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, any non-canon character is just added for plot reasons/exposition?, none of them are important yknow, some canon stuff is true other stuff isnt, sorta no pennywise au, tags will be added as needed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-17 06:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15455220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bevsmrsh/pseuds/bevsmrsh
Summary: When George Denbrough goes into the woods on August 26th, 1988 nothing will ever be the same for the small town of Derry, Maine. The boy’s mother locks herself away and leaves her other son, Bill Denbrough, to fend for himself physically and emotionally. On the first day of school, Bill is introduced to a young man who says he knows how to fix all his problems, but he might end up just causing more.By the dumb bitch who’s brought you such hits as: man i hate Shakespeare, the fifth kind, teen suicide: don’t do it!, and what’s love got to do with itWill she stop? Probably not. Does she eventually hate everything she writes and go for months at a time without updating? Mhm. Did she mean to completely destroy Richie Tozier as a character and make him into an asshole? Not at all he’s literally her third favorite loser holy shit what a mess that is. Will she stop uploading again? Definitely.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hellohello I have a new one and I LIKE IT! It is still a thing but is not necessarily Pennywise although some of the Pennywise gimmicks are still gonna be in this! Ummmmm what else to mention,,, characters will be introduced as the chapters go on and for the first time ever I’m not completely erasing Mike as a character because if I can ruin Richie and still have people read it I can probably write and okay Mike! Questions and concerns as always are welcome in the comments read my other stuff if you haven’t already because I’m pretty borderline happy with most of it my tumblr is bevsmrsh if you want to message me on there and as always have a nice day love grass.

The sound of bike tires gliding over pine needles was both therapeutic and familiar. It meant that the troubles of summer were over, no more dreading family activities or avoiding public spaces; it was autumn. Late August, school was starting soon, his last year at Derry Middle, and he was pretty confident in the fact that he’ll be able to become class president — his only competition was Emma Waldo and he knew for a fact that he had a promising campaign team, pins, and chocolate with his cute little face stamped on the packaging. Everyone loves pins and chocolate.   
  
This was also the year that he could start riding his bike to school. His mother said he should see how long it takes him to get there so he knows how long he’d need in the mornings, and he instantly took the opportunity to leave the house the second it was given to him. First, of course, he went by Dr. Keene’s store and bought himself and his brother some candy — it was a rare occasion that one of them both had spending money and could leave the house alone, usually they had to bring along friends and that was just a hassle. Friends typically hated when he stopped just to buy candy, and he couldn’t deal with that at the moment; he had a very loose strict schedule.   
  
Normally a trip from school to home would be through the suburbs, but this was his time! It was his day to explore, until dinner at least. It had been a while since he had biked past the woods and something told him to go there. It felt like he was being drawn towards the open air and deafening oaks. He had to see it. He had to see the trees one more time before it started snowing all the time. It was an insatiable desire to feel the crisp grass and see indescribable birds fly overhead before he had to write scientific reports about them. It was a hunger.   
  
  
The Barrens were a place his brother had always told him to never go to alone, but he’d never seen any reason why he shouldn’t. The forest was always a much more atmospheric place than he last remembered it: foggy, chilly, damp, and with the subtle accent of danger — the real looming kind, not the movie kind. The darkness through the trees felt like it was moving in on him, nearly swallowing the bright yellow of his raincoat. It was stupid. He wished his mother hadn’t made him wear it, it was barely even sprinkling.   
  
The air was making his hands shake from how cold it was, but the chocolate in his pocket was melting. It was impossibly hot, as though he were walking through the woods down into the core of the earth itself — freezing, freezing, absolutely frozen solid is how he felt, this was not a frozen tundra it was a forest in Maine that lacked any snow; he crossed his arms to regain some kind of heat in his fingers.   It seemed as though all light was lost when he saw the first one: a bright red balloon went floating past, it felt like it had materialized out of nothing.   
  
Just before it passed over into the endless nothing of the expanding forest, his fingers curled around the ribbon attached to it. Feeling something neutral and corporeal snapped him back to reality, giving him the realization that it was probably getting late and that his mother would be worried so he should start heading home; but he was all turned around. At this point, he hardly knew up and down from sideways, but he persisted in trying to get home — he shouldn’t be here after all.   
  
Right as he turned back, he heard the first voice. “Georgie,” a girl had whispered it, that’s for sure, but when he looked there was no one there. He stood for a few seconds, silent, dumbfounded, and was about to come to the conclusion that he was hearing things when the voice spoke again. Maybe it was poor decision making on his part, but he started walking closer to the voice, which caused a chorus of “Georgie,” whispers to erupt from the trees. As he drew nearer, the whispers turned into screams and cries for help, and his speed quickened. He had long since let go of the balloon in order to run faster, but it all came to an abrupt stop. Whatever that _thing_ was, it isn’t anything he’s seen before, but it was staring right at him.   
  
He felt stuck. It’s head fell back and it’s jaw unhinged, giving him a good look in on the bright lights nestled deep in it’s throat. The dense heaviness of the forest washed away as he slipped out of his raincoat and stared deeper into the lights, how he wanted so badly to be there. He wasn’t sure how long he had been out of the house, but nothing mattered anymore as he grew limp staring into the lights; it was as though he were floating above it all, his feet felt like they weren’t touching the ground anymore. Maybe they weren’t.   
  
—  
  
When George Denbrough disappeared into the woods on August 26th, 1988, the town of Derry, Maine began to stir uncomfortably. There were extra precautions taken, doors locked and children warned to stay as far from the woods as possible while traveling in groups, a fence was put up to divide the Barrens from the rest of the world. It made headlining news in the paper, a picture of him from the most recent yearbook was inserted next to the story, as well as a picture of the family, and finally of the infamous yellow raincoat found on the side of Wichita Road, laid lifelessly half on the bike he had been riding.   
  
Search teams went out every night for a week, it was a very pressing matter because “things like this just don’t happen in Derry.” George’s mother locked herself in their home and refused to leave, so the older brother became a little bit of a local celebrity. Everyone knew Bill Denbrough, older ladies would mumble things to one another when they saw him in the department stores and he had never had so many sympathy hugs from girls before — the men would just stare or shake his hand and say how sorry they were about his brother.   
  
He seemed unaffected, though behind closed doors with his friends or alone (there was no such thing as family time anymore — his brother had gone missing in the same year that his father died from lung cancer, he didn’t blame his mother for not wanting to see him) he was emotionally unavailable most of the time. Every second of his life was occupied by trying to find his brother, trying to bring him home.   
  
When school started a few weeks later, the excitement of a missing child had come down to a mere hum in the community, and Bill was mostly able to sink into the background once more. The only difference this time is that occasionally people would decide to introduce themselves and try being friendly — they almost wanted information about the case to tell their friends and he wouldn’t say anything about it that they wouldn’t already know. One person was different, however.   
  
It was the first day of his last year in high school, lunch, when a boy sternly walked up to him and smiled wide. “You’re Bill, right?” Stan, one of his best friends since first grade, spoke for him. “Yes, but we’re busy at the moment if you don’t mind.” The boy persisted, sticking out his hand. “Mike Hanlon, we’ve got history together.” Bill, though reluctant for a moment, shook Mike’s firm hand. “Now, I know it’s a little bit of a sore subject, but I think I know what happened to your brother.”


	2. Begin Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bevsmrsh on tumblr!

“Are you sure you want to take this on? There’s no reason for you to, I can always get someone else.” It was still very strange, having his boss’ daughter speak to him -- she was from the upper east London, and the accent was still very evident.

 

“I need to. It’s my hometown, I don’t think anyone else could do it justice like I can. I know what it’s like there. Know how to talk to everyone.”

 

She crossed her long arms, shrugging. She was just barely on the corner of her desk. “I’m sure it can’t be all that difficult to speak to someone. We’re journalists, Bill. It’s our job to learn how to talk to locals.”

 

“They’re weird down in Derry, alright Audra? It’s me or it’s no one. I’m not letting you send someone who’s not gonna get a word from those fucking psychos.”

 

“Okay, Bill, I get it. It’s you. I’ll let you go up there, I just need you to be careful, okay? You’ve already told me a few stories about it, and it doesn’t sound too nice. I want you back here in one piece.” Audra smiled the way she always smiled when she was trying to flirt and Bill smiled back the same way.

 

“I’ll be back as soon as I can be. And I swear,  _ swear  _ I’ll be in one piece.”

 

“Good. Now get out of my office before I change my mind about letting you go alone.” She gave him a playful smack on the butt on his way out, as she was one to do, and he couldn’t help but shake his head as he made it down the hall and towards the parking garage. People in Derry were always a little stranger than you remember them being.

  
  


The car ride back to Derry felt a little strange. All the old buildings he grew up near, riding his bike around and passing by on family trips, they were falling apart with vines growing between the bricks. Once swirling circular roads were now gentle curves. The trees did not go on for miles, the anticipation of being somewhere else only made them seem that way. Derry was always so much smaller when you stood on the outside looking in. 

The insides of the suburban jungle wrapped around him, squeezing tight and eliciting a wheeze. No one stayed in Derry much longer than they had to if they knew the way out, and coming back was harder than saying goodbye. The last time he’d ever seen Derry the wound of a dead little brother was still fresh. His mother moved them out of there as quickly as she could, to Pasadena with all the sunshine and happy families and things they no longer could have in Maine. The plane ride had been all fingertips and shaking heads at the very thought of whispering things they’d miss and eventually forget. You never really forget where you come from though. You just try to pretend it never existed.

  
  


“You know, it’s a little strange having people from big cities come all the way here for one little event. It’s not like it’s even old news, everyone knows kids go missin’ in Derry. It’s what we’ve got curfews for.” Suzy liked to smile and shrug a lot when she spoke. “But I get why you’re here, awful lotta people wanna know what happened this time. Think it’s an epidemic or somethin’. Last I heard people all the way up in Bangor been shuttin’ and lockin’ all the doors and windows at night. Funny how people act when they pretend there’s somethin’ to be scared of.” She said she was originally from Missouri, had the accent to prove it. She’s very nice though.

 

“Mike’s never left here, not even for a week. Stayed here with his daddy and momma and then his daddy died and he needed to take care of her, so he stayed longer. Eventually, the farm became too much for him to handle I guess. He had to sell it to the Knightlys -- one of them used to be a Bowers but she remarried after her kid snapped and killed his daddy. No one’s seen Henry since the summer of… what was it now? 1989? He’s the son.” Mike was a very quiet, private person. His girlfriend? Not so much. “But you said you knew Mikey back then, didn’t you? So you must’ve been around when that happened. He never really likes to talk much about growin’ up, must’ve been pretty hard from what I’ve heard. I think he’s scared I’ll go out tellin’ all my friends about this and that concernin’ his life. I wouldn’t though. Promise you.” She had an afro and big dark eyes that had the childlike wonder being in your 20s could give you. He understood why Mike was dating her.

 

“So where did you say Mike is?” Not that Bill didn’t absolutely adore talking to Suzy, she was just the kind of person who could go on and on forever and never get back around to the subject.

 

“Oh at work right now. That’s where we met. Work. Derry Public Library, you should really see what he’s done with the place. He got it redone a few years ago and there’s this big ol’ section dedicated to his friends and all the lost kids and stuff. He’s got all your articles and magazines with Ben’s buildings and interviews and that girls fashion stuff.” God, he hadn’t thought about Ben Hanscom in years. “Do you wanna come inside and wait for him? I can make you coffee, we got leftovers and cereal or I could make you a sandwich or somethin’.”

 

“Oh, thank you so much, Suzy. That’s very nice of you but I’ve got a few more things to do in town. How ‘bout I give you guys a call later and see if he’s around? Come back then?” She nodded her round head and quickly jotted down her number on a little sticky note for him, waving as the screen door shut and the sun was starting to get closer to setting.

  
  


The next place to go looking for answers was somewhere very familiar to him. The home of the most recent victim.

 

Bill tapped lightly on the door with his fist and was let in by a boy who looked like he was 15 at the most. “Can I talk to you about your sister?” the kid shrugged and sat down on the couch.

 

“Guess so. No one else is doing it. You can sit in the chair. My name’s Nate.”

 

Bill took a seat, but he found the chair incredibly stiff. “What’s your last name, Nate?” He turned on his recorder and set it on the coffee table between them.

 

“Ripsom.”

 

“And what can you tell me about your sister?”

 

The kid shrugged again. His eyes were unnervingly clear. “She was tall and had black hair and she just got her braces off like two months before all this shit happened. She was always kind of a slut though, so she probably deserved whatever happened to her.”

 

“What do you mean by that?” Nate Ripsom was incredible.   
  
“She was probably doing some dumb shit and got herself killed for it. She was always sneaking out and getting in trouble and all her friends were boys. She liked to go hang out with them in the Barrens and I heard she used to… y’know… do stuff with them down in the Barrens. Like… no one just goes there for no reason. All the upperclassmen have parties and get drunk down there and that’s what she was doing and some homeless freak found her passed out and then she’s dead.”

 

“No one ever said Betty was dead, though.” There were quite a few similarities between her and one of his old friends, it seems. As far as stories go, at least.

 

“I don’t think it’s that hard to guess what happened to her. You don’t just go missing in Derry. There was a kid a bunch of years ago that went missing in the woods where she did. He used to live here and he was missin’ for a while and then they found the kid a few weeks later with his fucking arm ripped off and they said his eyes were eaten by worms or somethin’. It’s fucking sick, I think I’ve got pictures if you wanna see them. My dad kept the newspaper from the day they talked about him.”

 

Bill, with a great amount of hesitation, nodded and Nate rushed up the stairs. He took the time to look at the blush pink walls and bright yellow kitchen. They covered up the scuffs in the walls from when he and George used to play as kids and his mother would yell and yell about not running inside. They smashed some vase of hers once and he’d never seen her so mad but she started laughing about it. “It was an ugly old vase anyways,” she’d announced softly, giving them bowls of ice cream and permission to go out and ride their bikes around until the sunset. It was one of the only times they were allowed out when it was raining.

 

“Isn’t it fucking nasty?” Nate shoved the pristine newspaper into his face until he grabbed it, looking over the words without much interest. Then he let the bottom half fall and the image staring back at him made his heart turn inside out. The person in the picture had his nose and his eyebrows, but there were no eyes to be found. A pool of slick red blood had formed over the place where an arm had once been and the expression was full of terror.

 

“Completely disgusting.” Bill agreed, handing the paper back over to Nate. “So… have you heard anything from anyone? Anybody saying they saw something or heard something about your sister?”

 

“Not really but someone said it was a lot like the last kid. Some older boys got her really drunk and fucked up on some drug, I dunno. Raped her and smashed her knees with a rock. I heard they found parts of her brain splattered like fifty feet away but apparently, they strangled her first.”

 

“And you think someone did that… to your  _ sister _ ?”

 

“Coulda happened.”

 

“You’re very nonchalant about all of this, you understand that, right?”

 

“My meds keep me down on my best days.” Nate shrugged again, but his smile was all too vicious to be kept down by any kind of medication. There was something off about him.

 

“Well… thank you for the information. It’ll help in solving this whole thing.” He turned off his recorder and slipped it back into his jacket pocket, standing, head held high when Nate caught his attention once more.

 

“Bill, whatever happened to Betty… it’s definitely happened before. That kinda thing just doesn’t keep happening in Derry for no good reason.”

 

He nodded and entered his car silently. So Nate might have just been trying to sound cool and distant on tape when it came to his sister’s death, but that’s still not the kind of thing you say about someone you cared for.

 

He decided to call it a day. He was in there for much longer than he thought he would be, and one chat with a future serial killer/horror novelist was enough for him on his first day back. Derry was always full of surprises.


End file.
